sometimes i worry about the arbitrariness of our concept of timecontinents and earth plates are the sand we know are the rocksfall on and off bigger stoneswe bring all thoughts to the seawhere we can see enough to knowtime only dancestime onlytime

About that curious "grammar" of positions (your angle, my angle) which now it seems intertangles our respective end-of-the-continental projects... it starts to feel almost "organic" (fungus growth or plankton proliferation?)...anyway I've been thinking further about the small daily variations in your sequence in relation to those plankton foam bubbles in the "color interference" post.

Yes, it's probably my age but I'm definitely feeling a heavy groundswell of the "historical"... the rolling weight of time rather than the exhilarated liftoff of the new year... as in the saying "I'm history" (said by the comic figure Father Time?).

"Don't know much about History..." but...

And then, "Don't Look Back".

How tiresome is gravity, the hills and everything else inexorably sinking. We have to stand on tip-toe to see anything. And who is capable.

The poet Herrick half-joked that the Old Sun was just a-setting when the joys of Springtime were to be had, thus missing the pleasures of the calendar.

One of my favorites of yours I've seen so far. Interesting read alongside "After the Deluge".

Geology aside (or not) I wonder if it's possible to "truly see nothing of what we have crossed over for the first time." (What an incredible grouping of words.) I suppose it could be, and that might account for the state of the country, or a reader. But how might memory figure into the equation?

This is what I love about the poems that speak to me: the immediate sudden jolt that sends so many parts of me scrambling.

'Geology aside (or not) I wonder if it's possible to "truly see nothing of what we have crossed over for the first time." (What an incredible grouping of words.) I suppose it could be, and that might account for the state of the country, or a reader. But how might memory figure into the equation?'

Mary, thanks very much for your perceptive comment, which catches the central ambiguity here. I suppose the poem is suggesting the exaggerated (absurd) idea that once the Coast Range is sufficiently eroded by time, it will no longer be possible, even in imagination, to have a vantage from which to look back east at those stretches across which the pioneers came. There is usually a personal element mixed into such absurd poetic ideas, and that is also the case here: "memory," as you have guessed, certainly, plays a part -- the memory of one's peregrinations and wanderings, making less and less sense with the passing of the years. But as you have fathomed, the poem also projects a larger sense of looking back, hinting perhaps of a present inability (or unwillingness?) to look objectively at a history (collective, not only personal) that may now begin to appear somewhat less "progressive," when seen in overview, than had once been assumed.

I do appreciate your attention to this poem. You have caused me to pay attention also.

A sense of moments passing within a time.And you know how I read this.....'That had been thought endless'........'that had been thoughtless' I never read the 'end' until 'leave your comment' box was up!And I am thinking; does it always have to be so?'And truly see nothingOf what we have crossed overFor the first time'It seems so *sigh*

Indeed it is a bit of a *sigh* post, you see what a weak thing I am, when you are not around to inform my view of things I am afraid I do lose heart.

Corrective steps are in order and will be taken as soon as I find my heart again, you are forever providing the helpful maps, with your brave example, so perhaps it will be not too long now... and we may *dance* (said he, tripping over his own feet once again).